Good story, Not enough for a whole film

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The Edge of Heaven is a rich, deeply engrossing character study combining the scope of something like Altman's Short Cuts with the sociopolitical punch of a film like Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane; the cherry on top being that it comes at you with the cut-and-thrust thriller mentality of something like Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton. Faith Akin's film is at once a gripping, unpredictable piece; a homodiegeticaly imbued joint venture between the Germans and the Turkish, arriving with a studious eye on what constitutes as involving filmmaking that goes on to cover a handful of people making, or having already made, great leaps two and from these respective nations. Akin's multi-stranded piece is a taut, gleeful film observing an array of differing people of varying genders at separate points in their respective lives, all of whom come to interact and dislodge with one another's existences out of a common thematic of ill-induced power exchanges.We begin with that of Nejat (Davrak), a character of whom, at the initial point of first observation, is far and away down the winding strand he'll eventually come to end up on. He walks through a petrol station somewhere on the coast of the Black Sea, the speaking over some internal music with an employee revealing Nejat's decidedly unfamiliar rapport with the place when he is told of a famous local musician's recent death. The flashback, one of many shifts in time the film will administer, reveals the man to be travelling by train, rather by than that of the transport we first observed him use, to the German city of Breman to visit his father Ali (Kurtiz). The flashback reveals Nejat's ability to read and speak English, a foreign language to him, and that he is a lecturer; he self-identifies himself as a "gentleman" and is in binary opposition of sorts to that of his father.Ali is a single man who likes to gamble, during which he specifically enjoys backing those of whose chances of winning appear fruitless. The man shares a steady affinity with that of Yeter (Köse), a woman that catches Ali's attention out of his desire for a domestic based female presence, a presence that arrives squarely with that of Yeter whose Turkish origins and whose certain qualities, as a prostitute, more than tick the right boxes. Where Nejat and Ali appear to put up with one another, neither party necessarily seeing any more of the other for periods longer than would appear tolerable, Akin weaves a fascinating little tale out of Ali and Yeter's eventual realisation that one's personal relationship does not equate to the equivalent of that of their professional one. Upon garnering her permanent presence at his home, paid for out of his own pension, Akin allows the bubbles of carbonated gas evident in a glass of freshly poured soda to dominate the soundtrack as Nejat and off-chance-lover-turned-new-found-partner Yeter are forced into becoming acquainted during a meal time.Where the majority of those of a Turkish disposition are sleazy, lecherous, drunkard and somewhat unpleasant; and those of a German ilk, or of a German born variety, are intelligent, informed and articulate, Akin constructs his second prominent strand subverting such things. Predominantly, the second story covers that of Ayten (Yesilçay), Yeter's daughter, and her relationship to that of a German girl Charlotte (Ziolkowska). Ayten is a free thinking female in the hotbed of political strife that is Turkey, strife which comes about when such characteristics rear themselves within such people. Illegally fleeing to Germany after storing a policeman's gun that she found in the street in an obscure hiding place, she comes under the tutorship of not only university student Charlotte, but also her mischievous ways of drinking; smoking and the frequenting of nightspots – items which have an ill influence on this empowered and activist-inspired-amidst-repression Turk.The film is bookended by this overhanging idea of power and control influencing for the bad, the conditions under which Ayten lived in Turkey coming across as regimental and false; the idea that Charlotte's mother Susanne (Schygulla), who is later granted a story of her own in the fallout of a tragedy, is too lenient and cannot implement the necessary authority to steer her daughter in the right direction, is additionally prominent. A snapshot from one of Nejat's lectures reveals talk of the dangers of such dramatic shifts in power or political influence, whereas Akin includes an instance in the film during which portraits of varying dictators hang periodically on walls, all the while accompanied by very little else so as to extenuate their presence, as the camera shifts to encompass one of them before lingering for a few seconds. Aside from this, and everything else that makes it work, the film is a wondrous example of stripped down filmmaking made with the sort of confidence and aplomb that opens your eyes to new worlds and delivers the various issues and dilemmas featured in a brash, involving fashion - to say that it works fantastically is somewhat understating it.

Was this going to be a keeper or be binned?Its all symmetrically constructed and contrived. A thick interwoven political seam is tying the film tidily too together. Narrative is jigsawed into precisely fitted – i.e engineered – plot pieces. Turkey bits slot into Germany bits and Germany bits get stuffed neatly into the Turkey bits (Lol)When a story gets to be too structured by coincidence it feels artificial. Life – authentic vitally lived life, in the raw, in the real – isn't scripted into tight predetermined plots.Seeing this confirmed a prejudice: the Turkish male attitude towards women (ok, thighbooted Turkish whores) is "I own you" = I'll slap you. Or we'll throw The Koran at you. Typically patriarchal and unsurprisingly chauvinistic. Therefore let Turkish women radicalise themselves, be running amok with guns. And love only women.(male Turkish Professors reading German are excepted, as they've liberated themselves via Goethe )The Turkish/Germany divide is suitably, equally, uniformly, intertwined. Commendable it is. Which is another way of saying worthy. But dull. Ken Loach would be proud.It's in the bin.

Yet another amazing film from Faith Akin, one of the most interesting, talented (and under- known in the US) film-makers working today. (note: very general, mild spoilers ahead)Its a moving, complex story of intersecting lives, violence, and politics in Germany and Turkey. Told with a complex, shifting time frame, there's almost a dark fable-like aspect to the constant missed connections between the characters that could provide salvation for all involved. And yet, within the darkness there is also hope. Perhaps nothing works out as it 'should', but human hearts find a way to reach out none-the-less.

This is such a complex movie with very complex characters. It also involves the tests of cultural differences. In the little traveling I've done, I always find myself looking over my shoulder, not because of the regular kinds of danger, but those cultural things of which I am ignorant. This has to do with subtle differences in government and the oppression of citizens. It has to do with the reaction toward those who defy authority. Also, Islam plays a large part in all of this. Ultimately, however, this is about a realistic portrayal of some incredibly interesting people, not because of what they have done, but how they are portrayed and react. I guess that makes it stellar acting. All the characters move around in a broad circle, motivated by their pain. There is the constant tug of how one is able to maintain a political agenda when one is faced with human tragedy. How much of life is about making a point. I kept waiting for all the pieces to be put together. They never are; but it is no matter. It's an excellent film.